March 10, 2015 Supreme Court to Examine Jury's Role in Death Penalty Sentencing

Yesterday, the Supreme Court granted cert in Hurst v. Florida (No. 14-7505), to decide whether Florida's death sentencing scheme violates the Sixth Amendment or the Eighth Amendment in light of Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002) (applying Apprendi's reasoning in the capital sentencing context). For more on the case, see this SCOTUSblog post.

March 03, 2015 Supreme Court to Rule on Conspiracy to Extort

Yesterday the Supreme Court granted cert in Ocasio v. United States (No. 14-361) to decide whether a conspiracy to commit extortion requires that the conspirators agree to obtain property from someone outside the conspiracy.

February 25, 2015 Supreme Court Holds That a Fish Is Not a "Tangible Object" Under 18 U.S.C. §1519

Today the Court issued an opinion in Yates v. United States, in which it reversed the judgment of the Eleventh Circuit. In the plurality opinion Justice Ginsburg wrote, "Mindful that in Sarbanes-Oxley, Congress trained its attention on corporate and accounting deception and cover-ups, we conclude that a matching construction of §1519 is in order: A tangible object captured by §1519, we hold, must be one used to record or preserve information." For an analysis of the opinion see this SCOTUSblog post.